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June 22, 2025 • 10 mins

W.A author Holden Sheppard popped in to chat about his latest book King of Dirt and we couldn't fit the whole thing into the show so now here it is in it's full uncut glory. The guys asked about his foray into adult fiction, being a proud Geraldton boy and the importance of writing about masculinity and mental health.  Plus, Lisa’s nephew and Holden’s cameos in The Invisible Boy got cut and Holden’s knack for running into Gero folk across the country.  

 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The award winning w Way author of Invisible Boys, which
became a hit series for Stan has a new book out,
King of Dirt, and that author and owner of one
of the best writing show biz names I've ever heard,
Holden Shepherd, is with a noow, good.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Morning, good morning, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Like Holden Shepherd, you had to be destined for greatness.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I was either going to be yeah, supercar driver or
something cool.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I don't tell you Dad was a Holden man.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I mean how to that was?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, you had to be Yes, you could have
been brock.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Look, I could have Look. I missed out on a
lot of opportunities. Here I drive, drive as fast as that?
Oh do you wow? Probaly wouldn't say that.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
King of Dirt And look, I've read Brink, I've seen
Invisible Boys. They're classified as YA and this is your
first adults story and boy, yes, yes, I'm reading it,
and I'm like, who's looking at what I'm reading? It's
pretty raunchy, holders, pretty full honor, it's pretty fall on.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I've had a lot of messages. There's a particular chapter,
the leaf chapter, where getting a lot of messages. The
content of that chapter a good way people are enjoying it.
They're I don't know you could do that in the book,
and I'm like, yeah, you can, because we grew up
with you.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Sometimes awkward moments when mumb or Dad would be in
the room watching something on TV. It was like, this
is different. You can you can write this.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
In a book. It's a bit easier because there's no
one sitting next to you watching it, right, But having
Invisible Boys on TV was a little bit it's a
little bit cringe to watch that with family members. Please
remember this is not me, this is a character.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Now. You're from Geraldton, and it seems the town has
influenced your storytelling.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, I'm proud, Gero boy. I left a long time ago,
but I kind of always wish I'd stayed. A country
boy in a way, I always felt like I belong there.
I liked who I was there, and I liked working there.
So I actually went back when they were filming Invisible
Boys up on location in drying and that's where King
of Dirt actually came from. I was sitting there and
having this big nostalgia moment of like, what would have
happened if I'd stay here, if I kept working in
earth moving and got married to a good jeror Italian girl,

(02:04):
which is you know what, whatever unexpected coast. Yeah, yeah,
we would look out that way. It didn't work out
that way, but it's like a little sliding doors thing.
So the King of Dirt was born. And Jack Brollow
is that kind of sliding doors version of me. Probably.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm not from Geraldson, but my my sister and her
family have lived there for close to thirty years now.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I get up there a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
And we all gathered to watch Invisible Boys because my
niece's husband was going to be in the opening. The
opening scene, he's driving the forklift.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
In a kidding at the port the poor.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's Jason, my niece's husband, and we're like, there's the forklift,
where are you?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Jack? Hitting a cat? Yeah? Do you know what? He
never made it. If he feels better, he's in good company.
My cameo got cut. I did. I'm raging, Did.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
You know though? Because there's nothing worse than beaving at
a preview and not knowing No.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I sat there and watching and I was like, here
I am. Any second there disipation and then I'm gone.
But I think I have met you.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Have Jason because she's presented him with an award.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, I was gonna say I went up to Guerro
and the Jar Report Reports whatever they call. They're like,
come down to our stuff, barbecue, and yeah they give us.
Give these guys I think are two blokes Report who
were extras in the show.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yes, he did get best forklift Driver.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah he got this little like little fake oscar Sta.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah it was a big moment.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, it's a very big moment.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
At least I get contacted by people we've known from
our past about what we did in radio. But you
must get that a lot now with people from school
days and the like.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I've just had it. So I've just come back from
the East Coast tour for King of Dirt and in Melbourne,
and this is what I'm so weary now about anything
I say in front of an audience, because you never
know who's in the audience. Yeah. So I was talking
about like past girlfriends at high school or whatever. Yeah,
let's look at this woman in the audience. I was like, God,
she looks familiar. She was my first girlfriend from zero. No,
she came along and she's like studying technology now and

(03:53):
she's gonna work for NASA. I was like, Okay, didn't
expect this. Wow, so yeah, you gotta be careful.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, amazed.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
I can never anyone.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I thought Jero was a small town, but you go
to Melbourne and it's like, oh, there's Jero. Still. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
It features so prominently on every page of King of Dirt,
you know, from the Bendy trees to the AREU team
Brand Highway or Indian Ocean Road. I've moved a brand
highway by the way, because you know, when it was
closed for a while, I found I could do one
hundred and ten from ellen.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Brook so much better. I live in Butler right and
Indian Ocean Drive. I was like, yeah, to go to
Jerro and it's like, not go one hundred the whole
weather Lands. Sweet, this is great. Thanks frustrating, it's the
most frustrated road in the world. At least you have
the choice. Yes.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
So writing, as we said, it's pretty rauchy. It is
a fairly erotic book. Is that hard to rush?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's it's just do you ever.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Blush your own Like, I can't believe I'm putting this
on a page.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
No, I actually really enjoy it, and it was really
freeing to to have worked in the ya for a
little while. And even though it's my books are kind
of gritty and grown up, but that were still kind
of pitched partly adults, but partly at fifteen to eighteen,
so you couldn't kind of go too far with it.
And this one was like, you're off the lead, do
what you want, Yeah, and I could just really write.
I felt that hot stuff reading, I felt that coming through.

(05:19):
I'm really happy, as.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Pretty full on as it is that speaking of Invisible Boys,
there is I believe a season two TBC.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, okay, but there is a second book.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Ah, well, there you go.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
So that's that's definitely confirmed. So I've written a book
called Yeah the Boys, which is yeah the Boys. Yeah
the Boys. It's hard to say it any other way. Yeah,
you just gonna say yeah the Boys. Absolutely, but it
brings it brings all the first three books together, so
the brink Invisible Boys, they all have like a big crossover,
calling it into the Shepherd Verse. Yeah, a Shepherd Verse.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Mentioned in King of Dirt. The island that doesn't actually exist, well, yes, that's.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Fictional island Easter Egg in there, kind kind of a
fictional Wedge Island, but I just don't want to kind
of absolutely it actually we because then but yeah, The
Boys sounds like something you hear at footy grounds with
five minutes to play all around Australia. Yeah, and that's
the thing, And actually, I mean that's what kind of
king do it is. It's a blokey book. It's as
much as it's a hot book. It's a blokey book

(06:22):
and it's about it's about men's mental health. So yeah,
The Boys is about the boys, it's about men, it's
about men's mental health, and it's about footy culture. Actually
it's kind of a celebration of all of it.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
It's very timely really and ties in masculinity, sexuality and
mental health so beautifully. And it's how important is it
to you that that is discussed as much as possible.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Incredibly important. Yeah, at the moment, there's so much in
this space, but there always has been. And I'm someone
who had incredibly bad mental health as a teenager. I
still have to manage my mental health, you know, like
it's not something that goes away. I think life, yeahs full. Yeah.
When I talked about Invisible Boys and Mike as a teenager.
People seem to think like, oh, so you were really
down and now you're all good, and I was like, no,

(07:05):
I'm not all good, but don't say that about me.
So with keing of dirt, I'm showing Jack and he's
got a lot of issues. You know, he's got addiction
issues and he's got mental health issues, and that comes
from me. I want to talk about this stuff and
throw myself into those conversations because I have mates who
haven't made it. I know lots of guys who struggle
and just don't reach out. And I did reach out
and it probably saved my life. When I was nineteen,

(07:25):
I reached out to across this line and I'm like, Okay,
I know this helps and I know this saves lives,
and I want more blokes to do that because it
doesn't feel weak. I never felt weak when I did that.
I felt stronger for it.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Silence.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, I wasn't just going, oh, life is hard, life
is hard. Let me numb myself with drinking all the time.
I mean I did do that for a little bit,
but it was like, let me try to help myself,
let me try to take charge of my life and
get better. And it felt tougher and stronger to actually
reach out and talk to a counselor then it did
to just suffer in silence.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
And so is there a lot of you in Jack?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
There is a lot of me in chat Yeah. Yeah,
he's pretty much man and he goes for Collingwood. Got
a problem with Betting loves yes whatever, that car is
the phantom. He loves this look. And I'm going to
be honest, you know my V eight is also called phantom. Yeah,
very thin veneer of fiction. Look, the thing I do
have to really be careful of saying is that, you know,

(08:18):
Jack's family are horrible and they're not my family.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
What about support? It obviously supports lovely from readers. They're
playing their good and hard money to buy the books
in that, but also when you get funding and the like,
you're standing on a stage with Nichola Forest and Minduru,
you know, giving you accolades, that must be wonderful. Supporting
the creatives it is.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's really cool to get organizations, philanthropic organizations kind of
funding the arts. So I got a grant from Mindaru
and then I won that award as a subsequent thing. Right,
So the grant was twenty five grand. The award was
fifty grand. That was early this year for this is
all for Yeah the Boys. Before I was doing that,
I was laboring the timber yard because I was like,
I have no other way to supplement my income. Writing

(08:59):
is a really hard thing to make a full time
living out of in Australia. Yeah, yeah, is just not
big enough book. So I was just lifting bundles of
wood and packing them for bunnings and then writing books
in my spare time around it. And I just thought,
this is so slow, Like I'm not going to get
my career anywhere if I do this. So I went
and went for a grant and Mindaru, thanks to thank
you to Nicola Forest. Thanks to the forest, they gave

(09:20):
me a grant for this book and they thought, yeah,
this could really work and it's just landed a deal
so it'll be out next year.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
So yeah, well it's it's so good to see you
have success with writing, because I mean, I'm a big reader.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I love to read. It's my favorite hobby.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I'd say all of my favorite writers at the
moment are Australian writers and West Australian writers too, so
and it's so exciting to read. You know, stories that
you identify places with, you know, whether it's the bendy
trees on the drive into Gerald and everything. So please
keep them coming. And thank you, thank you for King
of Dirt, thank you for coming in today.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
That good to see mate, And no word of a lie.
Lisa walked enough to started reading this one, and she
looked at me, Golden Shepherd.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
That is that's the reaction. I want, I got, I
got what I can.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Thanks man,
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